Lee Wilkinson - Marriage On The Agenda

Switching on the lights, she led the way into a comfortably furnished bedroom decorated in masculine colours of blue and grey.

‘He doesn’t leave clothes here, so I’m afraid I can’t offer you any pyjamas.’

‘That’s all right.’ Jonathan smiled. ‘I don’t use them.’

Feeling her colour rise, she said hastily, ‘But you should find a new toothbrush and everything else you need in the bathroom cabinet.’

‘Thank you.’

A thought struck her, and she added regretfully, ‘Except a shaver, that is. I’m sorry.’

He shrugged. ‘Don’t worry. Though I can’t see myself with a beard, in an emergency I have been known to wear designer stubble.’

‘Well, goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, Loris,’ he said gravely.

Feeling curiously restless and unsettled, she went back to her own room and was about to prepare for bed when she thought of her stepbrother.

Though Monkswood was virtually Simon’s second home, he wasn’t going to be here this weekend. Consequently, in his bathroom, there would almost certainly be a razor that their last-minute guest could borrow.

Without further ado she hastened barefoot along the darkened corridor to Simon’s room and went in quietly. Sure enough, on the bathroom shelf was an electric razor. If Jonathan Drummond hadn’t already gone to bed, she could give it to him now, ready for the morning.

As she reached his room she saw through the multicoloured fanlight above the door that his light was still on. Bearing in mind that not too far away people were sleeping, she tapped softly. When there was no answer, she tried again. Still no answer.

Perhaps he was in the bathroom?

She opened the door a crack, and could just make out the sound of the shower running. Deciding to leave the razor where he couldn’t fail to notice it, she slipped inside and tiptoed across the room to put it on the bedside cabinet.

Turning back to the door, she gave a half-stifled gasp. Just emerging from the bathroom, Jonathan was in the act of pulling on a short white towelling robe. His hair was wet and rumpled, and drops of water still clung to the fine golden fuzz on his legs.

Without undue haste or self-consciousness, he adjusted the robe and fastened the belt.

Thrown by how irresistibly sexy he looked, and feeling a sudden potent attraction, she stammered, ‘I—I did knock, but you must have been in the shower. I’ve brought you Simon’s razor. He won’t be wanting it this weekend.’

A well-marked brow rose. ‘Simon?’

‘My stepbrother.’

‘Ah, yes…’

Embarrassed to realise she was still standing goggling at him like a fool, Loris prepared to make her escape. Only to find that, somehow, Jonathan was between her and the door.

‘I’ll say goodnight again.’ She was aware that she sounded breathless.

He took her hand, while green eyes smiled into gold.

Wits scattered, she stood gazing back at him like someone mesmerised, before making an effort to free her hand.

When he failed to release it, she said huskily, ‘I must go.’

‘Must you?’

Without realising how provocative it looked, she used the tip of her tongue to moisten lips gone suddenly dry.

Using the hand he was holding to draw her closer, he said softly, ‘This time I think I’ll take you up on the invitation.’

His free hand slid under the fall of dark silky hair to cup the back of her head, and a second later his mouth was covering hers.

Loris found his light kiss both pleasurable and exciting. But though it sent a tingle right down to her toes there was nothing alarming about it, nothing to warn her that she was in any danger.

While part of her mind pointed out that she shouldn’t be letting this happen, another part answered that, as kisses went, it was relatively innocent.

She wasn’t caught up, wasn’t involved… She could walk away whenever she pleased.

But she hadn’t reckoned on the seductive sweetness that, almost without her realising it, made her want the kiss to go on, made her want to kiss him back.

As her lips parted, his tongue-tip stroked along the velvety-smooth inner skin, making her quiver, before he deepened the kiss.

Mark’s kisses were ardent, hot-blooded, sometimes bruising in their intensity. They totally lacked the finesse, the subtlety and imagination of this man’s lovemaking.

He explored her mouth with a kind of delicate enjoyment that sent little shudders running through her, while, almost unnoticed, his free hand traced her slender curves.

When it found the soft swell of her breast and his thumb brushed coaxingly over the nipple, she knew it was time to call a halt.

But the sensations that the thistledown-touch was arousing were so exquisite that every bone in her body seemed to melt, and an awakening hunger that refused to be stilled cried out for more.

Responding to that hunger, his lovemaking gradually became more intense as he added a new and disturbing dimension.

Passion.

But it wasn’t a tempestuous, uncontrolled passion that might have swamped any response, or served to scare her. This was a leashed passion that lured her onwards, that enticed and invited an answering passion, until suddenly she was lost. Mindless. Carried away. Caught and held in a web of sensual delight…

Loris stirred and surfaced slowly from a deep and contented sleep, to find grey morning light was filtering into the room.

Though her mind was still enshrouded in a kind of golden haze, she was dimly aware that her body felt relaxed and satisfied.

She was stretching luxuriously when one of her feet brushed against a man’s hair-roughened leg.

Shock hit her, and she stiffened as the sharp, cold wind of memory blew in, dispersing the haze.

Oh, dear heaven, what had she done?

After putting off her own fiancé for several months she had gone to bed with a virtual stranger.

She only just stopped herself groaning aloud.

Lying unnaturally still, afraid to move a finger, she listened to Jonathan Drummond’s quiet, even breathing.

Satisfied that he wasn’t yet awake, she turned her head slowly to look at him.

He was lying facing her, so close that they were almost touching. His tanned skin was clear and healthy, his breath sweet. There were grooves each side of his mouth, and little laughter-lines radiated from the corners of his eyes. Thick, gold-tipped lashes lay like a fan on his high cheekbones.

It was the face she remembered from the previous night, yet not the same.

The mature self-assurance and the somewhat disturbing irony were gone from it. With his tousled hair and his confident mouth relaxed in sleep he looked endearingly boyish, in spite of the morning stubble adorning his chin.

But there had been nothing remotely boyish about him last night. His lovemaking had proved him to be a skilful and experienced man.

Heat ran through her as she remembered all the things he had made her feel, and her own unexpectedly passionate response. After the fiasco with Nigel, she had started to wonder uneasily if she might be frigid. That had been one of the reasons she had remained celibate for so long. She had been afraid to start another relationship in case the same thing happened.

But last night had proved that she could be warm and responsive and far from frigid. The fault hadn’t been hers.

Nigel, she knew now, had been a selfish, uncaring, inept lover who, as well as mangling her self-respect, had almost destroyed her faith in herself as a woman.

Jonathan’s skill and generosity, his imaginative lovemaking, had triggered a response that had shaken her to the core. For the first time in her life she had experienced all the joy and delight she had only ever dreamt about.

If it had been Mark she had spent the night with, she would be on top of the world.